


hostility remains

by lakevoi



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arguing, M/M, Reconciliation, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 11:16:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17938682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lakevoi/pseuds/lakevoi
Summary: Michael and Alex have always been bad at thoroughly planning.





	hostility remains

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. started this two weeks ago, was nearly done before ep 6, and so now there’s a bit of canon divergence. But the canon divergence is literally just a timeline change with Michael and Alex’s relationship lasting the entirety of their senior year because by the logic of ep 6 they were properly together for less than a day which is dumb. 2. honestly i have no idea if gullies exist in Roswell and are a place that teens chill at like I did as a teen but go with it. 3. The geographical info on roswell is mediocre at best (pls forgive me i’m a simple valley girl from NorCal) and i’m assuming that the roswell air force base is still open within this universe. And the bit of air force info for alex is based on his black beret. 4. cw f-slur, general canonical homophobia, child abuse mentions, depression, and casual suicide ideation. also I’m not into heavy tagging so ymmv with everything else.

Two of the four lights in his refrigerator are burnt out.

Alex has been staring into the fridge for at least ten minutes looking at the bunch of apples (why were they in the fridge?), half of a takeout burrito from two days ago, and sparse options for a shitty sandwich. He’d attempted grocery shopping again yesterday and managed to walk out of the market with a jug of orange juice, three different types of coffee, and—inexplicably—a jar of dried dill.

The two hours he’d spent wandering around the store left his leg aching deep into what’s left of the bone by the end and he hadn’t even looked at what was on the conveyor belt before shoving cash at the cashier. The grocery trip before that one had consisted of buying all the items on one of those ‘So You Moved into Your First Apartment and Have No Idea What Groceries to Buy’ listicles and then proceeding to let everything rot in the fridge or stale in the cabinets. It was an ongoing battle.

He grabs the burrito and unwraps it. The tortilla had gummed underneath all the pico de gallo and the cold fat clinging to the pork leaves a thick residue on the roof of his mouth that he doesn’t even notice, but he keeps eating until only foil is left. He can’t remember buying it. Logic tells him that he did, but the memory isn’t there. He can’t even think of where he bought it from. The refrigerator continues to murmur quietly with the door open.

It’s no wonder the lights had gone out.

His duties with the Air Force had rapidly dwindled since the injury and being reassigned to Roswell hadn’t helped either. Shifting to US-based work at one of the smallest Air Force bases in the middle of a goddamn desert is practically a joke for him considering his entire training and career had been dedicated to on-the-ground combat maneuvers and being a liaison with other branches of the military. Being regulated to office desk work nearly drove him to insubordination and he’d almost started a fight with a visiting colonel because of the boredom a week ago.

Honesty would say it’s not just the boredom, but that’s a revelation for a different time. Coming to terms with his deep disdain for the military and the prosthetic and the last decade of his life is something for the therapist he figures he’ll see after a year or two or five. It’ll all come down to daddy issues anyway, he knows, so what’s the point?

He’ll just keep the discomfort and unhappiness to the confines of the cabin for as long as possible—his bank account can take a few bad grocery trips.

Alex hears the buzz of his phone before the high-pitched ring. It travels easily through the small cabin and, if he was smart, he’d just let it ring—the clock ticked past midnight and he wasn’t on duty. With a simple turn around, he could go lay in his bed and ignore the phone till morning. Let his father yell at him tomorrow.

Or he could just get it over with now.

By the time he made the decision and walked to the living room, the phone sat quietly on the side table. It would be so easy to walk away, go to bed, and pretend to sleep. Alex groans quietly to himself and picks up the phone to see [Private number] scroll across the screen.

Private numbers were familiar. Between the traditional military types and paranoid alien conspiracists, more often than not the people he knew in Roswell kept private numbers. There’d been a whole affair his freshman year when too many parents refused to give the school their phone numbers. Four parent-teacher district meetings, two assemblies, and a bomb threat later, everyone had been forced to give a number or the child would have to find another school. Alex never saw the point in being cagey when fucking *69 exists.

“Alex,” the voice drags the vowels of his name out, “You called back.”

“Michael?”

“I’m fucking glad you called back, ‘cause I’m kinda screwed right now,” Michael says.

Alex sits on the couch and angles the phone to hear better, “What do you mean you’re screwed right now?”

Michael just laughs in his ear, tinny and far away, “You’re drunk,” Alex says flatly.

“Little bit, but, uh, the problem is, uh, that I’m stuck out in the gully and I need some help getting out.”

“The gully? Out west? Like past Aleut Road-” Michael joins him in unison as Alex says, “and the old ghost house?”

Michael spoke again, “That’s the one.”

“Jesus Christ, I’ll be there soon.”

He’s smart enough to grab a jacket as he walks into the crisp breeze outside—spring was holding on for dear life as they crept into June nearing the official start to summer. The geography said he should have just been able to go northwest and find Michael, but the roads took him east nearly all the way to city limits before allowing him to veer west and head towards the Bottomless Lakes.

Alex has no idea if teens still frequent the gullies or if there were new desert hang out spots, but either way everyone he knew always went near Lost Lake. The one near the Devil’s Inkwell was further out about a mile on foot after driving to the lake and most were too lazy to walk that far just to get drunk on a half-bottle of stolen Taaka. Alex hadn’t even known it existed until Michael brought him out there.

Shit, he hadn’t been this far out in ten fucking years.

Roswell is quiet at night with most rising early to beat the sun, especially in summer, leaving them to their homes this late at night. He doesn’t see another car until he spots Michael’s ancient pickup on the edge of the parking lot designated for the Devil’s Inkwell. He’d be more annoyed by the security cameras that hung above them if he didn’t damn well know that there was no feed, just prop plastic.

He parks next to Michael’s truck and steps out of his car. A dull blue light coats everything in sight with the full moon and expanse of stars above him. Devil’s Inkwell never looks quite right to him with the small patches of bushes and trees near the dark water while the orange nobs of the surrounding dirt scream desert. The water can fool you for a moment—especially when the night has dropped the temperature quickly—but looking past the lake shows the true area. It’s always sweaty and dry and, if you aren’t careful, panic will find you.

_Never look on the horizon and breathe steadily. Don’t be stupid, the desert takes the stupid. Calm and careful is the only option._

His father’s voice rings in his ears. Alex has never managed to shake him from that far corner in his mind just there to yell out survival catchphrases and repetitive beratements. Still, Alex admits that the desert lessons prove more useful than the kidnapping run throughs.

He shakes his head, hoping to rid his mind of the grating voice and sets off past the designated walkways. It’s mostly flat and he doesn’t have to side step too many rocks, but it’s slower than he’d like. Back in California, the psychologist in the military hospital had told him not to separate his life into before the leg and after the leg. That he’d be left thinking in what-ifs instead of the actual present reality. Clearly, that asshole didn’t know how much of a piss off it was to take twice as long to walk a mile in the desert.

The walk shoves him back into the past he’d ignored for ten years. It’s not just heading to the gully, but Michael calling him for help. After the mess at the drive-in, Alex has no idea why Michael called him or why he went without a question. If he had to answer he’d say muscle memory. Michael calling him late and asking him for help reminds him of that year so vividly, he wonders if this is just some weird dissociation where he’s making up alternate realities in his head. Maybe he imagined the phone call and Michael won’t even be in the gully.

It wouldn’t surprise him as he’s been dissociating since arriving in Roswell even more than in the hospital.

About two-thirds of the way there, he passes by the old ghost house. Gaping holes in the walls gave way to a sad interior that was rumored to be haunted by some murder-suicide family. Or maybe it was a demon possession. Others heard the requisite alien abduction storyline.

He and Michael had only ever managed to find rotten wood.

* * *

 

“Here.”

Michael turns around from his locker to see a small brown paper bag, top rolled and crinkling underneath tight fingers with black nails. Behind the bag is Alex. Despite the clock reading 7:04 and his sleep-mussed hair, Alex’s eyes are sharp and alert. But they aren’t bright like they were in at the UFO Emporium. Michael raises his eyebrows and doesn’t reach for the bag. Alex hadn’t texted him back or found him at all that weekend. Michael specifically didn’t stay at the shed that weekend because of that fact.

Alex shakes the bag in his face, “They’re chocolate chip cookies. Take them.”

“How do you even know if I like chocolate chip cookies?”

“Everyone likes chocolate chip cookies,” Alex says.

Michael takes the bag from Alex’s grasp and unrolls the top. Sure enough, there’s a pile of cookies in the bag. All a perfect golden with chunks of chocolate laced throughout and sprinkled with large flakes of sea salt. No one has ever brought cookies to Michael days after making out in a dark museum exhibit. Hell, no one has ever brought cookies to Michael in general.

Holy shit, is this what Alex thinks is dating?

“This isn’t because of the museum thing.”

Apparently not.

Alex buries his hands in his jean pockets and raises his shoulders to his ears, “It’s just that Maria is on this raw food kick and I told Liz I wouldn’t give her anymore cookies till she breaks up with Valenti and I can’t eat an entire batch of cookies by myself—it’s too pathetic and also the last time I did that I puked all night.” As Alex finishes his sentence, his voice began to waver and by the end he’s rolling his eyes at himself; admitting the Snickerdoodles Mistake of 2006 hadn’t been on the To-Do List.

Michael folds the top of the cookies back down, packs them into his backpack, and smiles at Alex. The tops of his ears have gone bright red and it might be Michael’s most favorite thing that has ever happened.

Most students haven’t shown up yet and only a couple of people stand at either ends of the hallway unlike last week when the school had been filled by now. The new school year buzz officially ended with Labor Day weekend. Everyone knew their teacher’s names, reading assignments took over, and the new clothes had been regulated to the dirty hamper. Michael lived in extremes—either he showed up at school an hour early or he didn’t show at all. And right now, damn near the only thing keeping him here is the prospect of getting to sit next to Alex in English class later today. He steps in closer to Alex, speaking softly; even though corridors are open to the outside, there’s a tendency for voices to carry into the ears of prying teachers, “You wanna ditch school with me?”

Alex tilts his head at him thinking for a moment and finally smiles at him before turning to head out of the corridor leaving Michael to jog up to his side.

It’s a short walk in silence, keeping a steady pace until they clear the school perimeter. They stay together, a few inches closer than simple friends would be with their shoulders bumping every couple of seconds and the ability to whisper in ears.

“So, where are we going?” Alex asks.

“Old Airport, I know how we can sneak into the observation deck,” Michael answers, “You been up there before?”

Alex nods then stops, “Just the Old Airport, not the Observation Deck.”

Not a single person looks at them walking across town. It’s earlier and no thought is paid to the fact that all the other kids are heading the opposite direction. They keep to the main roads until they make it to a block outside of the Sheriff’s Department when they switch to sneaking through narrow alleys and waiting for cars to pass. Michael has Alex by the edges of his fingers and every time he looks back there’s a smile across Alex’s face.

The Old Airport is a decently long walk, but once they get to the edge of populated town they slow to a more casual speed and Michael slings an arm around Alex’s shoulders.

“You never texted me after we left the museum,” Michael says lightly.

Alex looks over to Michael at the corner of his eye, “My dad took my phone away ‘cause I got home too late.”

Michael jerks to a stop and grabs Alex by the arm to stop him, as well, “He took your phone? So, he can see our texts?”

“No, no, no,” Alex interrupts him, “I delete texts like twenty times a day and I knew he would take it the second I got home so I just popped the SIM card out before I even stepped through the door.”

Michael lets out a deep breath and nods, picking up the walk again. Alex wants to die a little at how cute the worry is considering the most incriminating text they’d sent were the ones when Michael planned to see him at the museum which were comprised of [hey do you work today?] and [yeah at noon]. To be fair, his father probably would have had a fit at those alone.

“Is he gonna freak with you ditching school?”

“Probably.”

His friends don’t ask about his dad. He’s never been able to figure out if they truly don’t think anything is wrong or if they just accept that something is fucked up. He leans towards them not knowing anything. It’s easy to assume that Alex is problem, not his dad. After all, his three brothers were honor students on various sports teams who never got detention or talked back or strayed from tradition and Alex is… not.

“He’s kinda strict with you, isn’t he?” asks Michael.

“That’s an understatement,” Alex says, the frustration evident in his voice, “It doesn’t matter, though.”

“If you knew you were gonna get into trouble, why’d you stay so long with me on Friday?”

Alex ducks his head, “Didn’t want to leave you.” A few second pass before he says, “Plus, you were telling me that story about how you nearly lit the Graduate Tree at the high school on fire by accident in middle school.”

Michael laughs, big and deep in his chest.

“You never did finish that story,” Alex reminds.

“I got a little distracted,” replies Michael. There’s a look in his eyes, Alex notices, one that he saw on Friday— one that makes him want to climb him like a fucking tree in the middle of the highway they’re walking on and Alex forces himself to look away.

They settle into a walking rhythm and Michael continues his story. The animation feeds into his gestures and his voice and he’s more alive in this moment than Alex has ever seen him in class. Even at the museum, he hadn’t acted like this, smiling widely and laughing at his own jokes. The museum had the rough undercurrent of being more than a little scared of getting caught and feeling some desperate vulnerability. Conversation falls from stories to favorite movies and guitar playing, yet Alex can’t quite find the ease Michael has formed; he still checks over his shoulder every few minutes and curves his body away from the road when the rare car passes.

It’s a useless tactic, Alex thinks. If his father or another airman comes across them, they’re going to know it’s him whether or not he turns his fucking shoulder, but any chance of prolonging this moment with Michael is worth it. Goddamnit, he just wants to illegally trespass and make out with a boy he likes for the day. Repercussions are tonight’s problems.

Luck manages to be on his side for once and they make it the two miles out of town in no time without anyone paying mind.

The city had put up a rickety fence—only a few inches taller than him—since he’d been out there for the first and only time at some party he, Maria, and Ortecho sisters had gone to last winter. Hopefully, today wouldn’t end with him punching some kid for calling him a fag and Rosa puking on his shoes.

Neither pauses other than to make sure no one is watching before hopping the chain link, both landing softly. Michael grabs his hand to drag him to the left, away from the main door and into patches of thick bush squeezing through the small space allowed between the shrubbery and tan brick around the corner of the building. Alex feels the scrapes of branches on his hands and a couple near his face, but before they could get annoying Michael leads them to a side door with an absurdly huge chain lock on the handle.

“You got a plan for this?” Alex asks, pointing at the lock.

Michael grins widely as he pulls out a small lock picking set from his backpack and brandishes it proudly.

“You know how to pick locks?”

“Yeah,” Michael crouches low to look at the lock head-on and starts fiddling with it, “One of exactly three things the New Mexico Foster Care System has given me.”

“One of three?”

Michael doesn’t look back but holds up one finger for Alex to see, “Lock picking,” another finger rises, “insomnia,” a third finger rises, “and an intermittent smoking habit. Now, give me second.”

Only a couple of minutes pass until the lock is falling apart in Michael’s hands and he sets the whole unit to the side. The kit goes back into his backpack as a small flashlight comes out and he knocks his head to the side to invite Alex to follow him through the open door. Inside bears no resemblance to the party from before where the rooms had been filled with teenagers and shitty beer and strobe lights leaving him to keep close.

They stop after one flight of stairs and a couple hallways for Michael to pick through another lock. Michael doesn’t look away from the door when he asks, “Hey, why’d you make me cookies?”

Alex bites his lip trying to decide between the lie ‘Oh, I just felt like baking’ and the truth.

“I don’t like to bake.”

Truth it is, apparently.

Michael stops with the door to look back in confusion—a clear request for more information.

“I don’t like to bake,” he repeats, “But my dad hates when I bake, like freaks every time. And I like pissing him off more than I don’t like baking.”

The look of confusion remains on Michael’s face for seconds before the realization dawns, “Because he thinks baking is gay.”

Alex laughs harshly, “He’d put it in different terms.”

Michael stands and gives Alex a quick but deep kiss, “Cookies are cool, but being part of your plan to spite your dad is way better.”

Once they get through the door, he’s led up two more flights of stairs, and down hallways by Michael—who never pauses at the maze of corridors and rooms—until the last door leads them back outside into the glaring sunlight atop the roof.

It’s a small area, just a square surrounded by a guard rail. Alex squints and pulls himself into the small shadow given by the towering observation deck up above them. In spite of the brightness, the beginning of autumn had taken away most of the summer’s heat.

Edges of graffiti scrawl across the cement, all following the general gist of Roswell’s usual with green alien heads and 666s and racist epithets. For a town known for aliens and UFOs, the amount of pseudo Satanism always surprises Alex. Only a few months ago, there’d been a big arrest of a cult group stealing and sacrificing someone’s goats. Maybe they’re sacrificing goats for an alien Satan, Alex thinks. Or they have just wanted to kill something.

He tilts his head to read the tags while Michael jiggles and curses at the stuck ladder in front of him.

“When one of us falls and dies climbing up that thing, it’s gonna be so embarrassing,” Alex says.

“Can you still be embarrassed if you’re dead?” calls back Michael.

Alex leans against the guard rail and stares at Michael’s back, “I figure embarrassment is the only thing you carry into death.”

Michael yells in triumph when the ladder drops into the secure position and turns back to Alex to present the ladder with spread arms, “After you, darlin’.”

“You’re sacrificing me to make sure the ladder is safe?” Alex says, beaming with a wide smile, “Very chivalrous.”

“I’ll catch you if you fall,” Michael replies.

Laughing, Alex steps toward Michael grabbing him by his backpack straps to pull into a kiss.

They’re on the front side of the building, easily seen from the road, but Alex can’t care. He’s not letting go of this slide of lips, of this closeness, of this sheer excitement. Michael makes him smile and Michael makes him want to stay. When he, Liz, Maria, and Rosa had road-tripped to Albuquerque to see Counting Crows, he’d snuck off into the back and kissed some random boys and, in that moment, cemented his decision to leave Roswell the second he could.

But those boys had nothing on Michael. Those kisses had made him want to run—Michael made him want to stay. Nothing had been powerful enough to ever make him want to stay anywhere.

* * *

 

Alex peers over the edge of the gully to see Michael sprawled in a small crevice with an empty bottle of tequila in hand. Dirt clings to his clothes and if Alex had to hazard a guess, he’d bet decent money Michael had tripped a handful of times. He contemplates just leaving him in the dirt to finish sobering up and find his own way home, but it took too much work to make here just to walk away and he calls out to alert Michael.

Michael cranes his neck to look up at Alex, “Holy shit, you actually came out here.” The drunken lilt in his voice disappeared since they spoke on the phone.

“Guess I didn’t imagine the phone call,” says Alex quietly to himself.

“What are you talking about?” Michael asks.

Alex brushes off the question and looks down to see his best bet for getting to Michael.

Opting for safety over speed, Alex walks down the edge to where the gully shortens allowing him to step down into it and then walks back up to Michael who stares at him the entire time. Even when monsoon season kicks in, the area never stays wet and he doesn’t mind sitting to the right of Michael. The curves of dirt surround them and a large, ragged piece of boulder juts out from the wall ahead of him. Alex nearly broke his arm jumping off it across to the other side all those years ago.

“You remember when I jumped off that thing?” Alex gestures to the rock.

Michael doesn’t speak, instead he just stares at Alex until he grabs him by the wrist and lifts his arm straight into the air, “Arms are definitely not supposed to bend that way.” He drops the arm back down into Alex’s lap, but his fingers remain resting on his wrist.

“Just a sprain, though.”

“It scared the shit out of me,” Michael admits.

The edge of the dirt had broken under his shoe and he’d angled just right to fall back into the gully instead of forward onto his knees. Somehow, his left arm ended up bent underneath his back and he’d landed hard in the dirt. The momentary panic of having the wind kicked out of him took over and he’d spent more time than he’d liked gasping for breath while his eyes watered, but finally Michael had made it down to kneel and pull Alex tightly into his chest.

Alex takes a deep breath.

“Why’d you lie to get me out here?” Alex asks, “You’re clearly not stuck.”

“I needed help. I’d fallen about ten times trying to get out of here when I called you, so I wouldn’t call it a lie,” Michael answers.

“Bullshit. You weren’t slurring and Max would have gotten here in half the time.”

Michael huffs a laugh, “If you were so positive I was fine then why’re you here?”

A stilted quiet fills air with Alex refusing to answer. He keeps his eyes locked into Michael’s and doesn’t budge. If Michael wants to play the deflection game, that’s fine— he’s had years of practice. Half of winning in military communication etiquette is getting the other guy to bow without saying a word. Alex gives a bland smile.

Michael gives in to the game, says “I wanted to see you.”

“And we have to be in the middle of the desert to do this?”

“Weren’t we always before?” Michael shifts his shoulders further into the crevice and looks up to the stars. They aren’t blinded by them tonight, but it’s still clear enough to see constellations without any imagination.

“Michael.” Alex stops for a deep breath, “Why are we here-”

Michael cuts him off, “Why are you still in the military?”

“I thrive in a hostile work environment.” He answers without a thought—the same answer he’s given hundreds of times.

“Come on, Alex.”

“‘Come on’ what?”

Michael lets go of Alex’s wrist and Alex immediately wants to reach back, but doesn’t flinch before Michael says, “You and I both know that a fucking military contract isn’t for ten years. Your’s was six. I remember. You re-upped. Why?”

“It seemed like the thing to do,” his tone is clipped and tight.

The taciturn fallback is automatic. His service is a shitty topic and when he does explain he’s left being the asshole; it doesn’t matter if he waxes poetry about honor or makes jokes about killing people or he’s honest—they don’t like the answer. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that Alex isn’t career military despite the quick ascension through the ranks. His brothers and father and grandfathers all talked about being in the military like it’s their purpose. Being in the military is a fix-all cure. Being in the military is their guiding fucking light.

Alex is only military when he’s got the uniform on.

He’d be lying too if he said he wanted to talk about the literal thing that caused their breakup.

“Fine.” Michael rolls to his feet, “Guess it was a mistake to bring you out here.”

Michael gets one foot in front of him when Alex reaches up to grab his hand. Alex doesn’t look up when Michael turns around, but he whispers, “I’m sorry, okay?” and Michael complies when Alex pulls down to sit him in the same spot.

Alex began to worry at his bottom lip, “Look, my second tour ended only a few weeks before my contract expired. And that tour fucking sucked. Everything that could go wrong, did. We had nothing for supplies, none of the higher ups had any clue what they were doing, and every other day was shit intelligence.

“I mean, let’s put it this way: if I had to choose tours, I would do,” Alex waves at his prosthetic, “that one again.”

The breeze kicks up for a moment and Alex watches it blow Michael’s curls into his eyes. Michael’s stare is heavy on him and he fights to keep the eye contact before dropping and looking down at his hands.

That second tour isn’t for stories with civilians. It’s not for anyone.

He’s still staring at hands when a thumb brushes his lip and he hears Michael say, “Stop, please, stop, you’re bleeding.”

His own fingers come up to his mouth as well and he feels the chill on Michael’s thumb before the warm streak of blood. He darts out his tongue to feel the hole he’s burrowed into the soft outer layer of his bottom lip. Alex quietly curses and wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, displacing Michael’s finger momentarily until Michael’s hand comes to cradle Alex’s jaw. Briefly, he leans into the touch and then shifts away, but keeps his teeth away from his lip.

Alex starts again, “I could give you my logical reasons—anything under eight years and I have to spend two in the reserves and the reserves fucking suck or I was on track for another promotion soon that would look good—but, honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know why I signed those papers again.”

“That’s it?” incredulity replaces the furrowed brow and worry on Michael’s face, “Ten years since we’ve had a real conversation and ‘I don’t know’ is all you’re gonna give me?”

The grit in his teeth hurts his jaw and Alex lets his voice drop into a dry deadpan, “Well, shit. Sorry that my explanation as to why I decided go back to that shithole and watch people die isn’t up to your fucking expectations.” Alex stands and turns to walk away, but only makes a couple steps when he spins back around, “What about you, Michael? Why are you still here? ‘Cause I can’t seem to see the appeal. Is it love of county jail’s drunk tank? Employee loyalty to the junkyard? Or is it a strict determination to do fucking nothing with your life?”

An ugly smirk forms on Michael’s lips, “I’m pretty busy with all of my criminal exploits and meth making. Plus, you know, I’ve got my eye on a new 1993 Airstream to replace the ‘85, so that’s taking up a chunk of time.”

“Gonna spring for new tires?”

“Practically all-terrain.”

“Impressive,” Alex spits.

The fight falls away in an instant. Somewhere in the argument, Michael had stood as well and now he’s left with his hands on his hips, slightly shaking his head. Snark and misdirections easily took both of them over and in spite of Alex’s successes at keeping his mouth shut in the military, it’s not so simple with Michael. Michael—who had none of the incentive to curb his tongue—thrives in the comfortable nihilism that sarcasm offers and Alex never fails to take the bait.

Their personal silence doesn’t carry to the wildlife. The breeze has turned into a full wind and Alex tightens his jacket around his abdomen. High pitched barks and howls of coyotes echo around them while crickets chirp insistently. Desert creatures have a tendency to mesh into one unison sound. Alex had never had the problems most of the northern boys had in Iraq even though the desert wasn’t quite the same. Higher winds, different critters, but that dusty suffocation felt like home to Alex. He never bitched about the heat in the day and the exponential drop at night.

It’s Michael who breaks the quiet.

“I didn’t ask you out here to fight.”

Alex gives a humorless laugh, “Then why’d you start fighting?”

“We always were good at fighting when we didn’t need to,” Michael says before swearing and bringing his hands up to rub his eyes then thread his fingers through his hair, leaving them atop his head. It’s all pursed lips and hard eyes, but he doesn’t give into the urge to let out a comeback.

He sighs loudly, “I don’t want you lying to me. And that’s what you’re doing,” he says, “Lying.”

“I’ve never exactly been forthright with people, this isn’t new,” Alex replies.

“You never lied to me back then.”

“You’re acting like you’re some beacon of honesty.”

“I don’t lie to you,” Michael’s eyes are too wide and he’s crossed his arms in clear defense.

“Sure you don’t,” Alex raises an eyebrow, “You were never absurdly secretive about that glass you kept in your truck and you and Max and Isobel weren’t always whispering about something in a corner and you sure as hell never threw your entire notebook on a lit burner in chem class when I asked you what you were taking notes on,” he takes a breath, “Subtlety wasn’t exactly your guys’ fucking forte.”

Michael has shifted his gaze to the horizon beside them.

Softly, Alex says, “How’s that high horse?”

When Michael finally looks back at Alex, the wideness of his eyes has turned genuine with no guard glazed over them. It reminds Alex of the scared teenager he’d seen too often back then. Alex wants to punch himself in his own face for recreating that look. Still, he doesn’t backtrack.

“I want to tell you,” Michael says.

“Okay.”

“But it’s not just my secrets to tell.”

“Okay.”

It’s clear in that moment that Michael realizes Alex isn’t going to yell or push and finally, Michael softens—his shoulders drop and jaw unclenches, “I’m mad you left.”

That makes two of us, Alex thinks, but stops short of verbally admitting it, “He would have killed us,” Alex says instead, “My dad. He was going to kill us. Shit, he tried.”

Alex swallows a couple times before continuing, “It was… I was… We got lucky that day.”

Despite the pressure it puts on his prosthetic, Alex crouches down and lets his head fall to his knees. There are large swathes of his memories that he shoves in a small void in his mind from the second tour to the morning his mother left to the stupid relationship he had to try to get over Michael. That afternoon, though, is buried so deep he hasn’t mentioned it to a single person since he and Michael broke up. The blood and bruises and yelling belong there; they belong in a dark, dank hole.

Alex rocks on his feet and moves to stand, but misjudges the strain on his right leg ending up with a stumble into Michael who catches him under his arms. Alex buries his hands into the folds of Michael’s jacket, shifts his weight onto his left leg, and stands upright. He doesn’t remove his hands. Arms tighten around him and he feels Michael press a light kiss onto his lips.

Michael’s breath is warm on his cheek when he says, “I wanna stop being mad at you.”

“And I want you to stop being angry at everything,” Michael continues.

Easier said than done. Anger is the only constant in his entire life. Anger at his father, at his friends, at the military. He and Michael had bonded over that anger. Everyone had been their enemy, even each other sometimes. Both were world class at finding people to get into fist fights with and the smart mouths were an easy defense. But Michael’s asking and he’d never been great at denying him.

“C’mon with me, I got a place we can stay.”

* * *

 

Cold seeps into layers of t-shirt and sweater and jacket. The frigid marble gravestone he sat on cuts into his skin and Alex knows he’s incurring so much bad karma by sitting on top of someone’s grave marker, but his ribs are killing him and it’s only around thirty-five degrees.

Jesus Christ, this is such a bad idea.

He’s about five minutes away from giving up the ghost and leaving before Michael arrives. Alex hadn’t snuck out tonight, so much as walked out the front door once he got free from his father. It’d been sheer coincidence that his dad hadn’t thought to take his phone from him and it’s a saving grace considering he’d been able to call Michael and ask to meet with him.

Except, Michael had told him not to come to the junkyard he was staying in and meet him at the cemetery instead. The cemetery where he’s gonna fucking die from exposure—or so he kind of wishes.

Alex curls into himself hiding his nose and mouth into the neck of his hoodie and jacket. The cold numbs the cut in his lip while his jaw still throbs from when he hit the ground hard earlier. With any hope it’ll end up just a shadow bruise.

Leaves crunch behind him and, thanks to the three months he’s been close with Michael, he recognizes the sound of Michael’s gait and the feel of him from yards away. Even with the nearly freezing temperatures, he’s able to relax a bit. Only seconds pass before Michael appears in front of him, pulling him into a tight hug that he flinches away from when his ribs protest. He gets a good look at Michael when he puts a couple inches between them. Alex isn’t the only one sporting bruises tonight.

Alex reaches up lightly drag his finger across the reddening patches along Michael’s eye just as Michael swipes a thumb across Alex’s jaw.

“Aren’t we a pair,” Michael murmurs quietly, “Was this your dad?”

He shakes his head in the negative “Not all of it,” he makes a gesture circle to indicate his face, “This shit was Valenti; the ribs and other stuff was my dad.”

“Ribs and other stuff?” presses Michael.

Stupid mistake, Alex thinks. Rule one when it came to the dad drama and Michael was don’t talk about the stuff he doesn’t see or notice.

“Nevermind me,” Alex shifts the conversation, “What the fuck happened to your eye?” The wound is still fresh enough to be red and pink in the surrounding tissue of his left eye, but there isn’t heavy swelling. A simple right hook, he imagines. No rings, no excess force. Eye wounds hurt like a hell no matter what, though.

“Stupid thing at the junkyard, Samuel got drunk, punched me, and fired me,” Alex’s memory quickly supplies him with the fact that Samuel is the junkyard’s owner, “I’m fine, he won’t even remember tomorrow when I’m there for my shift,” Michael says, rolling his eyes.

“Jesus Christ, you have to get a new job,” Alex had told him the same earlier that week and Michael had blown him off, “He’s gonna do real damage one day.”

Michael wets his lips quickly, “I like it there, Sam’s just an asshole sometimes. He pays me okay and doesn’t charge me for letting me park my truck there and stay. I’m not gonna get a better deal.”

Fuck his fucking ribs. Alex stands and hooks his arms around Michael for a tight hug. The sharp pain is immediate, but he doesn’t let go and he feels Michael bury his head in the crook of his shoulder. He can’t stop the shaky breath that’s a few steps too close to a sob for comfort. Michael doesn’t mention it. They stand there in a crushing embrace for what feels like hours. Michael thinks the best he’s gonna get right now is a shitty job with a shitty boss and Alex wants to shove him in that horrid truck and drive him as far as his savings account will take him.

“We’re gonna be the prettiest guests at all the Christmas parties with our faces, you know that?”

Alex chokes out a laugh at Michael’s joke. He pulls Michael back to lean against the gravestone with him and fills his lungs with the icy air. Only six months left till they can change everything.

The look he can feel Michael giving him nearly sends him running, though.

“Your dad and Valenti did this shit to you tonight?” Michael asks.

“My dad was yesterday,” Alex admits, “Valenti was tonight when my dad had the Valenti family over for dinner. I was avoiding the whole thing out at the shed, but he found me just to give me shit and, well, here I am.”

He tries to give a smile, but the pull from his split lip stops him.

“You didn’t say anything about your dad earlier when I saw you at school,” says Michael.

Alex shrugs, “Same old shit.”

Michael quietly repeats Alex’s sentence in frustration as if Alex had said something ridiculous.

“Alex, the goddamned Sheriff was at your house tonight,” Michael says fiercely, “Just tell him what he does to you. It’s not fucking okay!”

Alex starts to shake his head, inching away from Michael.

“Don’t shake your head at me, the shit your dad pulls is fucking evil,” Michael tries to persuade, “Valenti’s a cop and psycho about that family values bullshit, he’ll help you.”

A humorless laugh rings out, “You ever go to the Sheriff about the group home?”

“That’s different,” Michael protests.

“How do you figure?”

“Because everyone knows group homes are shitty! They’re supposed to be shitty!” Michael yells, “Your parents aren’t supposed to beat you because you’re gay, they’re not supposed to beat you at all. You’re dad’s a piece of shit and you need to yell it from the fucking rooftops!”

“Congrats on stating the fucking obvious. I was super confused about that one,” Alex replies.

An owl startles out of the tree near them when Michael yells out in annoyance, turning away from Alex. He stalks for a few steps toward where he came from originally, but stops to turn again—this time towards to the same tree and punches it with another shout. Alex can see the bloodied knuckles when Michael places both hands palm side on the bark to steady himself.

“Good job, that really helped the situation,” Alex can’t help himself.

“I’m just trying to match your helpfulness, but your sarcasm is really blowing me out of the water,” he answers, “Please just let the Sheriff help you, instead of basking in your own shitty attitude.”

“He’ll help me? You think so?” Alex asks, “He already fucking knows.”

Michael steps back in disbelief and Alex nods.

“Yeah. He knows. I think he tried to do something a few years back,” Alex trails off, “But nothing changed.”

He tries not to think about it—the fact that someone knows definitively. Someone who’s an adult. Someone who’s in law enforcement. It’s already enough being gay and no one saying anything when someone talks shit. The idea that someone knows that his dad beats the shit out of him and won’t stop them is too much. He’d daydreamed for years that his mom would come back. Stroll back into town and dramatically pull him from school, off to adventure in some city where she’d gone to so long ago. And his dad would protest and she’d rebuff him saying that he could have the other three brothers, that Alex deserved better.

Just a daydream, though. One he’d stopped having around his thirteenth birthday.

“Nothing’s gonna change right now,” Alex says, “The plan is just get through the year. We graduate and I can leave the house, okay? It’ll be fine then.”

He walks up to Michael and leans into him, “Please, just let it go. It’s so late and cold and I have work tomorrow. Can we go to your truck? Sit there or drive around or sleep, I don’t care. We can do whatever you want.”

Michael doesn’t speak, but eventually he moves grasp Alex’s hand to walk to his truck where Alex wraps Michael’s hand in the bandages from the first aid kit he keeps and quietly they nap with each other.

It’s only six more months to get through.

* * *

 

Michael follows Alex into the cabin. Alex’s limp seems worse than he’s seen it before and the shame hits him in the stomach for dragging him miles out into the desert. They still haven’t spoken about it—the leg and Alex’s tours. Michael doesn’t even really want to know. Hearing the gory details of how much more fucked up Alex’s life became would probably kill him. There’s a part of him that wants to keep Alex where he was back then. All piercings and skateboarding and black skinny jeans and contempt. Before he came back, he could pretend Alex’s father hadn’t won and he was off somewhere coated in the tattoos he always talked about wanting and never stopped painting his nails black.

Imagination will get him nowhere, he thinks. Being present with Alex here, though, will help.

It feels odd to walk through the front door, instead of quietly sneaking through the windows and looking over their shoulders. They’d broken into this place on the weekly pretty much and he’d always thought it was dumb luck not getting caught. In retrospect, there was no way Sheriff Valenti didn’t know.

“Valenti really was the MVP, wasn’t he?” Michael says.

Alex turns back to him and hums in confusion.

Michael gestures to the cabin, “He knew we were coming here, he had to have known. Somehow, I don’t think our dumbasses at seventeen had the sheriff fooled when we were here constantly.”

The laugh from Alex is warm and quiet, “Shit, you’re probably right. Think he knew what we were doing?”

“Do I think that Sheriff Jim Valenti knew we were using his hunting cabin to hang out and fuck?” he nods to answer his own question, “You just know he justified himself by doing that thing where parents say, ‘Well they’re going to do it anyway so let’s just give them a safe place.’”

Smiling, Alex steps closer to Michael—still half in the entryway, half in the living room. He kisses Michael after a beat, slowly and easily. Barely enough pressure to make him remember the puncture in his lip from earlier. His hands come to rest gently on the waistband of Michael’s jeans, not gripping tightly in skin and leaving bruises. Finally, a calmness had settled between them letting the last ten years to sit quietly beside them instead of invading every single one of their cells.

The kiss breaks, but they don’t separate. Michael’s arms had come to surround Alex’s hips during the kiss and they stayed.

“I miss the black skinny jeans,” Michael murmurs as he runs his hands down Alex’s thighs.

“Might be able to solve that problem,” Alex says, “I think I’ve still got them somewhere.”

They resume the kiss, relaxing in the simplicity. It’s not long until they step back into the couch, folding into each other.

“You got a plan for all of this?” Michael finally asks.

Alex shrugs, “It mostly involves you fucking me into the mattress.”

Michael’s lips are right against his when he says, “I think we can accomplish that.”

Through the living room and kitchen, they managed to dump their jackets, Alex’s crutch and one of Michael’s boots, but once they fall into the bedroom their efforts become more determined and they shed the remaining clothes and prosthetic without circumstance. They press themselves into the bed and Alex feels warm and hard and so alive in a way he didn’t realize he’s missed until Michael was near him again.

Alex drags his mouth along the column of Michael’s neck and he actually fucking shudders against him. Sex in the RV had been cramped and harsh and desperate and damn near painful. Crossing the chasm between them had hurt. It had been a grown man—one with scruff and broad shoulders—that climbed on Alex that afternoon instead of the teenager he’d expected despite logic yelling that ten years had passed. Tonight, though, the dissonance didn’t register.

Michael clutches at his waist and hauls him closer. Hips lined up and their cocks sliding together and it’s so fucking good Alex wants to cry a little when Michael rocks down again. The quiet kiss they shared earlier is long gone when their lips meet for a hard connection, biting and eager. Alex scrambles against him, angling up and begging for more, please, harder. He nearly lets the night fall away here with some surprisingly mind-blowing rutting, but when Michael grabs his ass he remembers. Jesus Christ, he wants to get fucked tonight.

Pulling back, Alex shifts away to get a lungful of air, yet he still sounds strained, “M-Michael, fuck me, please, come on, fuck me.”

A moment passes before Michael looks him in the eyes, pupils blown and wild, and it’s a moment more before he actually registers what Alex said. He nods and grins, “So fucking needy still.”

Michael fucks in slowly. He’d managed to get a couple fingers inside Alex before pressing his cock in. He’s still tipsy enough that a thorough fingering is out of the question, but sober enough to know it’s been a couple of weeks since they had sex, so he finds a middle ground. Slow to start, just pushing in as deeply as possible before dragging his cock out to just the tip and steadily inching back in. The stretch aches in him and Alex digs his fingernails into Michael’s bicep just to get a sliver of a focus. It only takes a few thrusts for Alex to begin whining for him stop fucking around and Michael laughs into the crook of Alex’s neck.

They fuck rough and quick. Sweat clings to Michael’s curls and there’s no possible way they could be closer. Despite the lessening tightness in their chests and familiarity that had seeped in, it wasn’t a hard guess that anything soft would result in a probable break down for the both of them. No, it was easier for them to press bruises into skin and gulp shallow breaths.

Alex doesn’t even think to touch his cock before he comes, sinking his teeth into Michael’s shoulder and clinging to every bit of him he could. The bite rouses Michael further and (Jesus fucking fuck) he’s driving in hard and deep and somewhere in this Alex realizes it’s him whining from the sense overload, but finally Michael shouts and nearly collapses with one last thrust leaving Alex dizzy and frayed in the way he didn’t know he needed. In just a few weeks, Michael had ripped apart the uneven and thin stitches he’d made to keep himself together a decade ago.

When Michael pulls out, Alex nearly grabs to stop him, but manages to stop himself from the borderline creepy neediness. There’s no beat before Michael reaches a hand between Alex’s legs to touch where he’s red and slick and swollen. The fingers prod at his hole feeling through the lube and come before letting a couple fingers just settle inside him.

“Are we aiming to hit all of our teenage hookup spots?” Michael asks.

Alex laughs through the sex haze clouding his mind, “Maybe you can blow me out in the old cemetery tomorrow, then. Or we can go to the emporium.”

“It burnt down.”

“What a shame.”

The bed only creaks slightly when Alex turns bury his head in the curve of Michael’s neck.

He didn’t have a plan.

Sure, maybe there is only mustard and coffee in his kitchen. And there’s a creepy underground bunker bedroom below them. And he’s almost positive Michael knows something about the colored glass he found down there.

But who needs a plan when he can finally breathe easily.

**Author's Note:**

> this two snarky angry little assholes got me to write a coherent fic for the first time since ff.net was the reigning queen and i love them. all mistakes are mine.


End file.
